blog.marcwiesner.com

Oh I was sure purprised when I logged onto Facebook and had my privacy software (ZoneAlarm) tell me that my name was being sent to circuitcity.com. What’s the connection between Facebook and Circuit City? No Circuit City ads were even being loaded (not that loading a CC ad means that my name should be sent). It’s as if Facebook just sent a little "oh by the way, Marc just logged on" to whomever they please.

Worse yet, to whomever would pony out the dough.

Facebook End-of-Year Privacy Sale!

Everything Must Go!

I’m sure many have now heard about the heat Facebook is taking for their "information sharing" across websites. Apperently, purchases from certain merchants get fed into your Facebook feed unless you opt-out. That’s right, users are automatically opted in for this privacy invasion. Nice. Very friendly. Funny how this comes on the heels of that ridiculous Microsoft buy-in, isn’t it?

I heard on NPR that Facebook, responding to criticism of privacy invasion, said that users can set their privacy options to not display information aggrigated from other websites in case they didn’t want everyone to know what book or blender they just purchased. Deciding to tackle this before everyone I know discovers how many copies of The Rights of Man I’ll be purchasing, I open up Facebook and go to their privacy section. Here is the full content of that page (minus headers and ads):

Show your friends what you like and what you’re up to outside of Facebook. When you take actions on the sites listed below, you can choose to have those actions sent to your profile.Please note that these settings only affect notifications on Facebook. You will still be notified on affiliate websites when they send stories to Facebook. You will be able to decline individual stories at that time.No sites have tried sending stories to your profile

That’s it. Here are the two things that jump out at me. 1) There are no sites listed below so I don’t even know what sites to be wary of (read, unmarked minefield). 2) There’s no settings to control. There’s no way I can tell Facebook that I don’t want this information gathered, traded, used for marketing, or displayed on my own or EVERYONE’s mini-feed.

Boiler-plated this seems a passive way of saying that they aren’t sharing WHERE this information will be collected from, WHAT they’re wispering about in dark corners, WHEN they will be publishing the information they gather, or WHO I can tell I want my privacy respected. My question is WHY does Facebook think it’s necessary to do this in such a shady way? There are enough programs and apps for Facebook that people can add if they want this information shown.

They can opt-in.

Why can’t I opt out?

Here’s a nice little reflection on my adventures in Shanghai, written a few months ago around the time I was getting my Russian visa and rubbing elbows with the underworld on a nightly basis.

Shanghai, as it always has been, is an experience.

To summarize: my first time in Shanghai I was sick and coughing up blood before I passed out in the Hostel lounge. Second time I spent most of my late evenings on the street, occasionally striking up conversation with pimps and whores. This, my third time, I’m getting a deeper view of the SH underworld after undertaking a quest to recover a stolen camera.

The pimps are very helpful (so much that the Chinese saying ‘behind every smile is a knife’ stays close to the front of my mind) and it’s humorous that after three nights talking with groups of them for hours I recognize most of the working guys on the street (and they, me). One of them even introduced us to a man of influence (to put it subtly) who was willing to make some commission-based inquiries on our behalf.

Chances of recovering the camera seem bleak, but I have the strong impression that it depends more on how rogue the thief was than anything. If nothing else, I think I know some people who would know a good place to get "second hand" cameras.

To bring things back to the present day, the camera was never recovered, though I DID learn a new scam. Always nice to have some ways to make extra money while traveling ^_-. 

Hello my friends,

It’s been a while since I’ve bothered everyone with a mass mailing and the time seemed right for another.

I left my Hostel job early and started moving. I picked up a Russian visa in Shanghai and crossed the border to Russia’s eastern port city of Vladivostok. Three days on train took me to Lake Baikal and from there another four days to Moscow. Russia was fantastic; great food, friendly happy people, and a gorgeous landscape. I was in Russia for a total of two weeks before my visa ran out and I left for Latvia.

Riga was a complete surprise. Seemed to have a more casual, western European feel compared to Moscow. The old city was filled with beautiful architecture and an amazing array of food options. I only wish I was there fore more than two days but I had a cheap flight to catch down to Italy.

I spent a few weeks on Ischia sampling various pizzas before training it up to Frankfurt, Germany, for a four day wait before flying back home.

Tons of fun. And now I’m back home, dirt poor, and scouring job postings, hopefully for a job in a legal office.

Hope everyone’s well and has had a relaxing summer.

It’s New Year’s day on the Jewish calendar. We usually have some sweet food so the year gets a sweet start. Hope you all have sweet years ^__^

Cheers,
m

Well that Russian visa came through. That was a while go though. From Shanghai I ventured up to China’s far north and spent a few days in Harbin. Nice place, wonder museum exhibit setup in an old Jewish Synagogue left from the Jewish community that was warmly received there and contributed so much to the infrastructure of the city.

After Harbin, it was a mere 12 hour bus across the border to Vladivostok. It was a long ride and time difference, finally arriving in Vladivostok was two things: midnight and cold. A friend from the bus (a Russian studying Chinese in Harbin) and her friend helped hail a taxi to a hotel. Though it was dark and alien in the cold darkness of that first night, the morning brought an AMAZING view of the harbor that brought a new energy and excitement to the city.

Food in Russia’s been fantastic and there’s no shortage of good dark beers.

At some point I hope to have time and recollection to elaborate on the cities visited. To keep things brief; after Vladivostok I went to Irkust and Lake Bikal where I got to take a swim in the deepest lake in the world. And then to Moscow. Since entering Russia it’s been a week on trains, most nights spent drinking with locals and making friends despite my lack of Russian.

Moscow’s an amazing city. Great architecture and fashionable people. Such a difference from the fashion I was used to seeing on the streets in China. The wide spread use of the mullet hair-style interesting for me though. And expensive as hell except for the metro.

I’m planning on making a cheap sojourn through Europe overland by bus starting in Latvia. From there I’m hoping to reaching London for a cheap flight out of Europe. 

I’ve been in SH for the last few days working on getting a Russian visa and gorging myself on foreign foods. I woke up this afternoon to a fantastic downpour that made an orchestra out of the plexiglass roof of the hostel patio two floors below my room. In the patio now, the heavy rain drowns out nearly every sound around me. The kinda rain I like. With the lines at the Russian embassy here I’ll be waiting in line starting at 5 am tomorrow to file for my tourist visa. I don’t know why they think they’ll have to worry about Americans illegally immigrating but it’s part of the game so I’ve gotta play.

Last night after dinner at a Thai place and dessert at a branch of the world famous Taiwanese Din Tai Fung it was off to a live jazz bar down the street. The cold Jim Beam and hot jazz made a nice cap to a night that actually ended much later. Next stop, pending Russian visa, is Beijing.

That’s next week though….there’s a lot to eat before then =P

I had the idea of approaching Xiaozhou (our younger chef who’s so cool about practicing english with me) about making a sweet and sour tofu the other day. He was surprisingly keen on the idea of trying. More so than the master chef he asked about it the next day. Both chefs are fantastic, but the master chef is a bit territorial with what happens in the kitchen. Once I suggested that putting some salt on top of the french fries after they’re cooked with add a nice (and authentic) taste. His reply was a firm “if they want salt they can ask me for salt.” He was similarly skeptical about my idea of blaspheming tofu with a sweet and sour sauce.

Xiaozhou had it handled though. He found me a minute later outside of the kitchen and said “the chef’s taking the day off tomorrow.” And today it happened. And oh it was so good. As I said, both chefs are fantastic, but it’s nice to get a new flavor mixed into the routine. I’ve already gotten an approving nod for a KungPao Tofu from the fellow ^_^.

Brilliant brilliant young chef

I’m really starting to miss non-Chinese foods. Don’t get me wrong…the Chinese food here is fantastic, but I could really go for some good Thai or Mexican..or Indian..or Viet. I swear I’m going to gorge myself to such a disgusting level when I’m back in Cali.

Work’s been good but tiring. Long hours, and I’ve been sick the last couple days. The Chinese is coming along well enough though it only takes a few minutes of trying to watch TV to know how far I am from fluent. Something I accept since I spend most of my time practicing travel and hotel Chinese.

I took a few days to visit a Lu Mountain (庐山) in Jiangxi (江西) province. The weather was nice, the beer good, and I found a fantastic potato, tofu, and black preserved bean dish. All the same it was so nice to get back into Wuhan. As soon as I set foot at the Art Academy next to Pathfinder I felt back at home.

The boss is gone for a couple days to Chengdu (成都) so I’m at the desk all day today watching the new kids to make sure they don’t break anything. Tomorrow once a real receptionist comes in I can rest. I found a Thai place a little bit away and I’m intent on seeing if it lives up to reputation (and still actually exists). It’ll be good to try something different =P.

One of the last conversations I had with XiaoJun before he left was the musing, simply expressed in my poor chinese, that people come and people go. His reply: "yes, because this is hostel."

That was more than a month ago. He left. Many have left. Because it is hostel. Had a dream while napping in the afternoon a few days ago. Wuhan, some time still to come. Sunshine needed someone to go with her to take someone’s passport picture and she took me. We drove for a while to a restaurant that Echo had opened. A nice restaurant. Big. It was Alex’s picture that we were taking. Grishka was there too. Fresh sadness at having them gone.

It’s starting to warm up in Wuhan. It’s close to reaching that point where leaving the hostel is an evening activity exclusivly. Two nights ago a Wuhanese coworker took myself and some guests to a hot pot place next to a night market that, despite being fairly close, I hadn’t even heard of before. Delicious hot pot and many great looking things that I didn’t get to.

The night before yesterday was busy in that unexpected sense that has ceased to surprise me; at least 10 foreigners flooded into the reception tired from the bus ride from Yichang into Wuhan.

Met Satan last week. Drank with him. Cool guy. An English student / artist who made some of the wall-space of the hostel more colorful. Most of the photos on his blog on and after May 2nd are in Wuhan Pathfinder.

The busy season from the May holiday has come and gone. We were busier when the cherry blossoms were blooming next to East Lake. I didn’t have an excuse (reason, need?) to sleep on chairs in the back this time around =P

Sunshine told me to take a morning off. I was planning on walking across Wuhan’s First Bridge but an hour relaxing next to the Yangtze and some time wandering around the streets around the hostel were enough to bring the romance of this place back and wipe away some of the frustraion that stacks up little thing by little.

I think I’ve figured out what bothers me about most Europeans I meet traveling; they tend to put a fair amount of effort in trying to find or recreate the Europe they left behind. Despite being in a very foreign country they expect the same standards of clean, language, privacy, public behavior and what not that’s found in Europe. The shock of not finding this familiarity seems to be more than most Europeans can handle. Thus, the communities of people who have nothing more in common other than their place of birth arise out of a smoke of disappointment and dissatisfaction.

In the west we usually criticize such insular communities. Indian, Korean, Chinese communities, it’s thought, create a buffer which impedes integration. We think it bad when people live in these communities and become so insulated they can’t speak a national language but what contributions to Europeans bring to their communities? Are western restaurants as popular in Asia as Asian restaurants are in the west? Do we have many scientists and scholars who decide to move into China to help with academic research or philosophical inquiry?

People from English speaking countries traveling here in China seem to be particularly off. Not as a rule, just as a general observation, people from Australia, England, Canada, and the USA react remarkably poorly to such a foreign place where English ability are by no means an expected norm. I suspect the problem can be considered as stemming from a Continentinal Island mentality due to the fact that we aren’t really pushed to learn a foreign language since we don’t really have any neighbors who make it necessary. While the USA’s southern neighbor Mexico would seem to give us a good reason to learn Spanish it’s clear that this motivation is lost on most US citizens; a point which itself should speak to Mexico’s general status within America.